The present invention relates to a device for receiving used syringes, suture needles, scalpels and other sharp medical instruments.
In modern medical environments, it is of the utmost importance that medical personnel not be exposed to soiled syringes or other sharp medical instruments which may be contaminated by disease. In the past, medical personnel have been accidentally punctured or cut by these soiled sharp medical instruments.
This problem has become particularly acute with recent concern about such highly contagious and dangerous diseases as the AIDS virus. With all of these concerns, an operating environment still requires that many steps be taken promptly and it is not always possible to keep soiled sharp instruments safely removed from medical personnel. For this reason, the prior art developed containers to receive soiled sharp medical instruments.
Many prior art containers are large central containers disposed on a wall of the operating room. Medical personnel must transport the soiled sharp medical instruments to the wall-mounted container to dipose of them. This leaves the potentially infectious sharp instruments exposed to medical personnel at the operating site until transported to the container. In addition, medical personnel who must transport soiled instruments to the container on the wall are exposed to being punctured or cut by the instruments.
Several smaller disposable needle container have been disclosed in the prior art but are inadequate for a number of reasons. Many do not provide sufficient room to receive an entire syringe or other elongate instruments, such as scalpels.
Some prior art containers do not smoothly guide sharp instruments into a stored position. With these types of containers, medical personnel may be cut while attempting to dispose of the sharp instruments by placing them in the container.
Several prior art devices are opaque and do not provide medical personnel with the ability to view the interior of the container. The number of instruments within a container cannot be counted. In an operating environment, medical personnel have an accurate idea of the number of instruments that have been utilized. Thus, it is desirable to count the number of instruments received within a container to determine that there are no stray soiled instruments left out and exposed.
It is thus an object of the present invention to disclose an improved container for receiving soiled sharp medical instruments that provides sufficient space such that elongate instruments such as an entire syringe, or a scalpel, can be received within the container.
It is further an object of the present invention to diclose a container in which soiled medical instruments that are placed in the container are easily guided into the container.
It is further an object of the present invention to disclose a container in which the number of soiled instruments within the container can be counted.